Feeling rather blue *WARNING* Content may seem like I'm whining

You sound so much like my younger self, I'm almost hesitant to answer, because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have listened to me then.

But I can tell you where I went from there. I bounced from one eating disorder to another, sometimes thin, sometimes fatter, and always hating the way I looked. Being thin didn't change that.

I didn't start to get HEALTHY until I learned to love myself, honestly. Right now, I'm set back a bit after a bad injury and some mystery illness fun, but it's not stressing or worrying me this time. (Stress makes your body store more fat, which sucks.).

So here's the part I hope you'll listen to, but which I know I wouldn't have: you gotta learn to love yourself before you can make lasting positive change.

It's stupidly hard when you're surrounded by judgmental people who are trying to encourage you by recalling when you were thinner (this never works). The best thing to do is to decide whether you really need those people in your life every day and to find people who see your awesome NOW instead of putting your life on hold and treating yourself poorly hoping for a future awesome that may never come.

So, here's how I got out of it:

I dropped the judgmental people from my life, for the most part. I decided that I had enough demons in my head, and I didn't need so-called friends adding their voices to them.

The well-meaning judge mental people eventually got talkings to, and I laid it out for them: your judgment isn't helping me; I need your support for me, who I am and how I am, and if you care for me as you say, you'll figure out a way to do that.

Then came the really hard part: learning to love me. That took shutting out all of those negative influences and taking a hard look at what I didn't like. Everything I didn't like about myself was met with a hard "why?" And I demanded good answers from myself.

-Fat? That was society talking. There are times and places where fat has been beautiful. I studied them.
-Looked bad in my clothes? Found better clothes, and refused to buy what didn't flatter me anymore.
-Bad skin? Time to take care of myself. I saw a doctor and learned I had rosacea. That was causing my bad skin. All it took was medicine.
-Boring? It turned out I was too afraid of being judged poorly to speak up. I did a lot of reading, some writing, and learned to contribute.
-Ugly face? That took some work. Some days, I still don't like my facial features. But I've learned to choose hair, glasses, and makeup (when I wear it) to flatter me. Not to look like anyone else or the latest trend. And eventually I learned not to care so much whether I was a glamorous beauty. Looking back, I don't think that's even what I really wanted or needed.
-Everyone putting me down and being a doormat? I stopped putting up with it. The worst that could happen was losing a friend. And good riddance. It takes the courage to realize you really are better off alone than surrounded by toxic relationships.

It was only after all of this that I met the person who turned out to be an amazing match for me. I wouldn't have been the right person for her until all of this either, so the timing was right.

It's like RuPaul always says: if you can't love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love anybody else?

First, I just want to give you a hug. Most people in the gym are concentrating on their workouts and barely see others.
don't give up. Make a small change toward fitness, then another. You got this.